[ams6110]

Agree. I lean conservative and generally feel that the market will find the best solutions. If solar is economically superior to coal then it will replace coal. We don't need government policies and tax incentives to make that happen.

[tzs]

How is the market going to account for externalities, such as climate change in the case of coal, without nudging from government policies or tax incentives (or anti-incentives)?

[mbostleman]

Because consumers want it. Consumers used to pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee. Now they pay $5. That didn't happen because of government nudging. It happened because a different demand was created.

[tzs]

A fancy $5 coffee drink looks, tastes, and smells different from a 50 cent cup of coffee.

A kilowatt hour of electricity that came from the dirtiest coal plant in the universe and a kilowatt hour of electricity that came from whatever the cleanest source is are completely indistinguishable when they come out of my sockets and go into my appliances.

[mbostleman]

True. But people are very aware of green branding in any form that it presents itself. Idaho's population growth was 2.1% in 2018, tying with Nevada for the highest in the country. I assume this is largely driven by similar population growth in Boise in the same period which was the highest in the top 100 cities in the US by population. I don't have data on this, but given what Moody's says is the demographic driving this (tech workers from the Bay Area and Seattle), I would think that all else being equal, this green image is a huge draw for the state.

[cannonedhamster]

And yet no conservatives seem to be clamoring to rescind oil subsidies or coal subsidies, but the raucous roar comes up at the Republican rallies when something is said about rescinding renewables and bringing back coal. It's literally the platform the President ran on. I don't think it's political to be able to say that the platform a party runs on is something that they support. Am I misunderstanding something here?

[cwperkins]

Well this gets into the domain of realpolitiks. As I understand it the platform was not to reinvigorate coal but rather remove targeted regulation that accelerated the collapse of those communities especially in West Virginia and buy them time to transition. I want to lead the world as much as everyone else, but people argue that a heavy green investment would be a self inflicted wound especially when places like China are the biggest polluters and are still outputting more CO2 and see the results of a gas tax in France that disproportionately affects rural communities. I want sustainable energy as much as everyone else on here does, but we need to transition responsibly as our debt is massive.

[prolepunk]

I'm sorry I'm jumping into a political argument, I'll try my best to stay on point.

From what I read about West Virginia, those communities were collapsing anyway, and what Obama administration did, is to try and support government programs for the former coal miners to learn new trades and get some financial support.

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

Not that it is possible to retain any of the coal jobs because they've been automated and the remaining ones are being rapidly automated.

At this point there are more jobs in solar than there are in coal industry.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/7/14533618...

Based on this information, in my opinion this is not even realpolitik, its lying -- as in, knowing facts and then misrepresenting and misleading people; because of any number of reasons -- be that coal lobby, or what 'feels right' for the average voter rather then what happens in reality, and I don't know how to deal with that myself because this realization makes me feel anger.